The suburb of Gardens lies within Cape Town's city bowl, below Vredehoek and Oranjezicht and it is popular to live here because you are so close to everything. The trendy and upmarket Kloof Street is just moments away with its restaurants and interesting shops and boutiques and the CBD is 5 minutes' drive from Gardens.

Close to Gardens are the Company Gardens on Government Avenue, which began as a vegetable garden for skurvy-ridden sailors. Today it is a botanically diverse city park with over 8 000 varieties of flora and an interesting spot to picnic. Other interesting sites include museums, a planetarium, an open-air market at Greenmarket Square, set among stately Georgian and Cape Baroque influenced buildings and the colourful area of the Bo-Kaap, with its tumble of narrow lanes, brightly painted flat-roofed houses and mosques.

Gun salutes are fired automatically at noon every day except Sunday from nearby Signal Hill, used as a signal station from the earliest days of the Cape Settlement.